WHY NIGERIA CANNOT BE ONE

“WE ARE ONE NIGERIA...”

“For where?” That's the biggest lie every one of us born in Nigeria have been told. Nigeria cannot be one. Well, that might look harsh, but that's the truth. I'm gonna make this as short as possible. I wish to post this article before the bill on hate speech is passed, you know, we wake up to see crazy things happen each day. The country has had a long history, from the point of amalgamation (which was the beginning of our troubles) to the civil war (which cemented our troubles, creating a deep inter-tribal rift). The divide created by the Civil War is what we see today, at least we all know that. The war, from a behavioural perspective, was a result of faulty perception. In the war, it was a flawless victory for the Northerners, the war was fought in Igbo land and they bore all the thorns of war. In 20 years or even less, the Igbos 'bounced back' from the ripples of war, thanks to institutions like the University of Nigeria which drew federal presence to the South East and the entrepreneurial spirit of the Igbo man seen in the economic boom in Onitsha and the crafts on Abia, particularly in Aba.

That said, it's pertinent to note that, the tribal orientation in the three main ethnic groups differ. The typical Yoruba person puts culture first before anything else. They pursue education and greener pastures, even to foreign lands, however, resisting acculturation. They're communalists, ruled by powerful and spiritual figures. Just like the Yorubas, the Hausas are communalists ruled by selected leaders who are usually very powerful.

Traditionally, an Hausa man seeks a peaceful life, usually content with what they have. They have the orientation of living off of what they get in a short period and staying happy. Just like the Yorubas, they have a short term orientation of life but different in the fact that they're meek. Their culture is tightly interwoven into their religion. They are travellers and traders. They move on land, from one region to another in a bid to trade, largely ignoring the possibility of acculturating in the host culture. A typical Hausa person wants to show dominance of their culture over others. The Igbos are special kind of communalists. They have a more flexible culture, which also vary across dialects. Their behaviours of individuals are directed to an extent by the decisions of village chiefs. They have a strong drive to progress, seen in their industrious and entrepreneural pursuits. The igbos were the most democratic tribe among the three main tribes.

The colonialists bound us together despite our differences, ruled us with their own type of government, and corrupted the peaceful democratic system of the Igbos, strengthened the Emirates in the north. On handing over the mantle of leadership to an indigene, it had to be the northerners possibly because of how successful the indirect rule was in the north or due to the fact that they were less enlightened. I have gone too deep into the Nigerian history, though not the crux of this article, but necessary for an alien to understand the whole story. Long story short, the coup came, then resulted to the civil war which was fought on the Igbo soil, taking the lives of about 30,000 Igbos, meanwhile, other part of the country functioned as though nothing was happening, for example, children went to school  daily in the middle belt and the north. The Igbos never clenched the coveted seat of the president afterwards. The nature of an igbo person led to the quick rebuild and replacement of what was lost, they bounced back within 20years post-war.

A social psychologist would say, there are three factors that improve liking; Proximity, Familiarity and Similarity. Using it for the three main tribes, its obvious we are close to each other, in terms of land area. This closeness has fostered the movement of goods and services, from north to south and from the south to the north. When this sort of exchange happens, there tend to be a complex mix of culture, hence, reasonable familiarity. However, familiarity has occurred largely as a result of habitation and tenancy of one ethnic member in another ethnic region; cohabitation. As I noted earlier, the various tribes travel at different rates, reasons and distance. The Hausa man typically inhabit another’s land for trade, a Yoruba person stay in another’s land mostly as a result of jobs and sometimes for education. The Igbo people are and have been everywhere (even before the war) for many reasons: trade, job, comfort, and even for education. This has fostered familiarity, so that if a Yoruba person behaves, they say that that’s typical Yoruba behaviour. Similarity is something we don’t have, something our colonial masters never considered before the amalgamation. For people to live in peace, they have to be similar in many if not every way, it helps in understanding and acceptance of different behaviours. What happens when people who don’t look and think alike meet can be seen in other countries as racism and xenophobia. That’s the thinking that “these people are nothing like us.” Now, there are differing ideologies unique to different tribes, apart from cultural variation. For example, an Igbo person sees religion as a means to an end, while an Hausa person sees it as an end.

This problem of similarity has contributed immensely to the difficulty we have had as a country from independence till this very moment. This is the reason why this can never be ‘one Nigeria’, that’s the simple truth. Every culture sees other cultures as outsiders; however, the level of estrangement depends on the culture and their unique attributes. The in-group and out-group differences that tear people apart.

What has happened in this country ever since I was born has put shame to my face and has successfully dulled the hope I have for a better tomorrow. Don’t call me an optimist, unbeliever or whatever, try and get my point. Really, what sparked up this article was a research survey I completed online late November about my hopes for the future. That’s when I discovered that I lost hope on this beautiful country. Another influence behind this article is our rising national debt. Ok, lets start with the debt, probably because its more heart rending and the evidence is glaring. On 23 November I saw on the news that Nigeria owes 25.7 trillion naira! Bulk of this debt was accumulated in the regime of President Mohammadu Buhari. The saddest thing is that the government is keen to borrow more. Their reason for borrowing is to solve the infrastructural problems of the country. Questions that would pop to the mind of any concerned citizen are: cant they cut expenses? What have they done with Abacha loot? Don’t they have a good economic and financial management team? What have we learnt from history, do we even learn? The cost of running the government of Nigeria is provocatively high. Utilities, feeding, running costs, medicals, luxury and even waste of productive time by civil servants are the problems facing the government. They have done little or nothing about this problem, and the government loose billions of naira annually for these. Recovered Abacha loot have always been given to the poor. Every society have poor people among them. Of course poverty is of two types, relative and absolute. The inhabitants of the northern part of Nigeria, despite how blessed they are with mineral resources, arable land and their benefit from decades of unequal distribution of wealth have chosen to be lazy, therefore resulting to begging for alms, which sadly looks to me like a cultural plague. We are hypothesizing that that’s their definition of poverty (the alamajiris), and they are the beneficiaries of the recovered loot. Let’s not forget that any lucrative art reinforces itself.

The height of the current national debt is so depressing. It’s possible my children will see the debt still unpaid, if we continue this way. I remember how former President Obasanjo tried as much as he could to offset our debt before he left office. Sometimes I wonder, we are the giant of Africa, how is it that we don’t have enough to sustain us. We cant refine our own oil. We import everything, from match box, toothpick and toothpaste. Those countries we run to for loan, how have they thrived so much as to have enough and some spare to lend? You know the sad thing? The president is still agitating to borrow more money. Countries that welcome our loan-seeking behaviour are usually foreign countries, outside of Africa. That implies we are all in this problem together. That’s why the AU is metaphorically akin to a toothless dog, because of its members. African leaders have management issues. Just recently, a president of one African country named 10 streets after himself. This sparked massive criticism, but that’s not his business, what’s done is done. It seems to everyone that South Africa is the best country in Africa, judging from how developed they are. According to Abraham Maslow’s theory of need, the first need is the basic need for food and drink. The second is the need for safety; for a higher need to be met, the lesser need ought to be satisfied. The last need is need for self actualization. The United State and Great Britain in my view have attained the status of self actualization. Nigeria and India are fighting to get off of the need for food and drinks and other basic needs. South Africa have moved up the ladder ahead of the rest of us, possibly because of the number of years Europeans spent there. Europeans have a way of making their abode as comfortable and as homely as possible. The country, despite being in the chains of apartheid for donkey years have had a fair share of economic progress. Well, you can just think of this paragraph as an unverified hypothesis if you like.

Truth be told, the whole western idea of leadership and system of government don’t seem to favour us as Africans. An African ideology and approach to leadership and politics is quite different from that of the originators. First, our culture, which is largely communalistic in nature creates this negative mentality of non-representative leadership. Non-representative in the sense that, a leader only cares about their immediate relatives, in other cases their tribe and in fewer cases for their unborn children. Secondly, our religion, which played a functional role in our default political system has now been subdued and stumped to the dust by the western religion. In all these, how do we explain the dastardly behaviours of President Idi Amin of Uganda and a host of others like him? Admittedly, every nation has its history written in blood. Thousands of kingdoms existed across Africa before the medieval period, and these kingdoms sometimes went to war against one another. The white men found us, initiated trade with us, first in goods, then in humans. Sadly, we encouraged the white man by kidnapping and selling our own people into slavery for things like silver wares, torches and whatever material things they fancied. Later, colonization took sway, after the official share of ‘inheritance’ in the famous Berlin conference. Why were things like this? Why didn’t we have equal edge as they? I ask myself these questions each time I think about the scramble for Africa. Maybe I need to read more books to understand more. At least I know evolution theory asserts that life started from Africa. The Bible also wrote that God made man, then woman and not a white person and after a long time, a black person. Why did they meet us whilst in a primitive state? We basically started off at the same time as they, why then are we wallowing in a ‘stage of life’ that they have successfully crossed about 100 years ago? You can consider it another untested hypothesis.

Nigerians are good people, unfortunately subjugated in social stress. Social stress, here, are those stresses associated with social deprivation, that in some cases lead to mental problems. If you don’t like the smoke, you get out of the kitchen. Funnily enough, from a survey I did, it was observed that an average Nigerian youth has lost hope in the course to a great country. A significant number of adolescents and young adults, even middle aged people, when given the necessary support to leave the country would gladly do so. One man told me that someone gives free transport to Nigerians to travel out, there would be mass exodus. I was having a hearty conversation with a cycle rider about the bad state of our country and how development has not reached many areas of the country judging that from how bad the road we were using was. He made a statement that got me laughing and thinking at the same time, he said, if he could find opportunity, he would leave this country, if its laundry or other menial jobs, he would do for them there and be satisfied. Now that’s mind bugling, because Nigeria is a land of significant freedom, and this man is willing to toss the freedom to the curb just to be a ‘slave’ in a foreign land, most certainly in a white man’s land. On second thought, whatever anyone has in surplus is usually taken for granted and freedom doesn’t appeal much because its intangible. Recently, there has been massive brain-drain in Nigeria. For example, medical doctors have left the country in their numbers for employment opportunities. The president expressed his sadness over this development. Well, that’s the same president that chooses to do anything medical in the UK. Students trained in the UK or US have better chances of securing a job in Nigeria than those trained in Nigeria. Politicians put their children in top universities overseas, take medical trips and afford exquisite luxury. These are the reason politicians are one of the most despised class of people in Nigeria. Unfortunately, you might just be like them when you get there. The country produce about half a million graduates every year, but there’s no social provision for them. In this condition, tell me why there won’t be increased crime rate. The bill on hate speech which I talked about is on for real. The person that sponsored the bill insisted on standing by it because of how important he feels it is. Which shows us that the senators and lawmakers only represent their own interest, not the interest of the people that put them there. The aim of sending them there is to represent the people at the grassroot, air our opinion and perspectives to things. Now, this senator took it upon himself, without support from his constituency to sponsor the hate speech bill. What exactly is hate speech and what are the boundaries to its definition? Lets not talk about how the rule of law has been dragged to the sewer by the DSS in the case of Omoyele Sowore. A common explanation would be founded on the fact that APC seeks the interest of the president who is a northerner and who has consolidated his position by putting his kinsmen in strategic and sensitive positions. All the rest of us can just do is watch in regret.

In summary, I have explained the tribalistic nature of this geographical construct called Nigeria, our similarities and differences, then to Africa as a whole, because its essentially easier to understand our problem while looking the bigger picture. The things that divide us are greater than things that unite us. Curroption is fuelled by tribalism. Tribalism is so grave that, development is stalled; for instance, when a project is approved or allocation disbursed, people usually view its benefit not from or appraise the government based on the tribe it benefited and not how it helps us all. This is the fundamental tenet of the Minimal Group Paradigm in Social Psychology and Sociology.